Wednesday, May 11, 2011

This morning I attended the swearing in of the two new Green MSPs at Holyrood. The experienced and battle hardened Patrick Harvie (Glasgow, pictured) and the fresh faced and bushy-tailed Alison Johnstone (Lothians). I will admit to *almost* crying but swear to all mighty Jehoshaphat that not one drop of saline solution touched my manly cheek.

LPW has an interesting piece on the role these rituals play in society and comments that one of the most interesting things for him is spotting the embarrassing middle names. For me the high point of the proceedings was when the Proclaimers walked onto the balcony to watch the show. I may have let out the subtlest of squeals of delight. But no one noticed, it's ok.

Marco Biagi, SNP candidate for Edinburgh Central, looked super cool as he took the oath in Italian (the first to do so perhaps?) and the mighty Alex rounded off one session of swearing ins by literally throwing a flower up into the expectant balcony - how's that for a curtain call?

Sadly no one had anything written on the their hands or made any ultra-embarrassing pre-oath remarks although Labour's Neil Findley prefaced his oath with a statement that his loyalty was to the people of Scotland and was taking the formal oath as a legal requirement not a binding pact with the Queen. I rather liked that.

Anyway, it was all very reminiscent of a graduation ceremony with family and friends dressed up to the nines to watch their loved ones receive their little certificate they'd been working for all these years. I'm not generally a fan of these formalised moments, but I was keen to attend today and was glad I did, it feels like a nice rounding off of my Scottish adventure.

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